foreign policy

The feud between Republicans and Democrats on the Benghazi Select Committee intensified Wednesday after the Republican National Committee announced it had filed a lawsuit to force the State Department to turn over all of Hillary Clinton's emails from her tenure as secretary as state.

President Obama speaks in the White House’s Roosevelt Room on Tuesday about his plan to close the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison. He was joined by Defense Secretary Ashton Cater (right), with a painting of former President Theodore Roosevelt on horseback behind them. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

President Barack Obama on Tuesday delivered a passionate call for Congress to give his plan to close the Guantánamo Bay military prison a “fair hearing,” casting the terrorist detention center as a hindrance to national security.

Even before Obama spoke about the plan , Republican lawmakers dubbed it “illegal” and made clear it has almost no chance of being enacted. But Obama ended his remarks with a defiant tone.

American classic cars are seen outside the US Embassy in Havana on Aug. 14, during US Secretary of State John Kerry's visit. (Photo by ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images)

Updated 3:35 p.m. | President Barack Obama will travel to Cuba next month, a visit that will mark the first time in nearly 90 years that a sitting U.S. chief executive will set foot in the island country.

Obama and his wife Michelle will arrive in Cuba on March 21 for a two-day visit that will include a meeting with Cuban President Raúl Castro, brother of longtime Cuban leader and American rival Fidel Castro. The visit comes over a year after Washington and Havana restored all diplomatic ties in December 2014 and the two countries last summer re-opened embassies on each other’s soil.

Members of Iraqi pro-government forces ride atop their vehicle on the outskirts of Ramadi on Wednesday after they took back the area from ISIL forces. (Photo by MOADH AL-DULAIMI/AFP/Getty Images)

Key U.S. allies in the Middle East could be stretched too thin militarily to provide the ground combat troops the Obama administration, Republican lawmakers and experts agree are needed to defeat the Islamic State.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates this week both signaled a willingness to send elite commandos to Iraq and Syria. But an Obama administration official on Friday said those forces likely would only assist American troops with providing training and advice to local forces there.

Clinton has tried to put distance between her Syria policies and Obama, but Republicans say that will be a tough task. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

Republicans see a tangible consequence of President Barack Obama's foreign policy in the terror attacks in Paris and want to tie their likely opponent for the White House to it.

While former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has tried to distance herself from the Obama administration's policy in Syria, Republicans are counting on the perception that Clinton shares blame, having served as the face of U.S. foreign policy from 2009 until 2013.